Dover board member Bonsell caught lying

From: http://ydr.com/story/doverbiology/92406/ Thank you, Robert Baty, for referring me to this one! ... In Dover suit, a day to sweat by Mike Argento (York

Message 1 of 2
, Nov 1, 2005

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From:http://ydr.com/story/doverbiology/92406/

Thank you, Robert
Baty, for referring me to this
one!

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In
Dover suit, a day to sweatby Mike Argento(York Daily Record/Sunday News,
11/1/05)

HARRISBURG — On the witness stand during Monday's session of the
Dover Panda Trial, Dover Area School Board member Alan Bonsell accused
the press of just making things up.

Keeping that in mind, here's a
description of what happened Monday afternoon.

Wearing a nice gray
suit, Bonsell answered every question to the best of his ability and was
positively forthcoming and when the lawyers pointed out certain
inconsistencies in his testimony, he thanked them profusely and offered
expansive explanations for why he may have been misunderstood and cleared up
any misunderstandings that may have arisen.

OK, all of that was made
up.

Except for the part about Bonsell wearing a gray
suit.

Actually, at the conclusion of his testimony, he was in serious
danger of ruining that suit.

That was when the judge started asking
him to try to explain — um, how should I phrase this? — certain gaps and
problems with his testimony.

It was remarkable. Judge John E. Jones
III asked for a copy of Bonsell's deposition and started asking him
questions about why he felt the need to cover up where the money came from
to buy the 60 copies of "Of Pandas and People" that wound up in the Dover
high school library.

Bonsell didn't explain very well.

At one
point, he replied to the judge's query with, "I misspoke."

"I misspoke"
wasn't working. So he tried to layer on some verbiage — at one point,
seemingly, speaking random words that had nothing to do with what the judge
was asking — to give the impression that he was merely trying to answer the
question.

When, in fact, he was merely trying to avoid answering the
question.

The more he talked, the worse it got.

By the conclusion,
it was clear to everyone in the courtroom that the judge was pointing out
that Bonsell might have lied under oath.

That's a problem.

Ask
Scooter Libby.

Or Bill Clinton.

Bonsell wasn't being asked about
who outed a CIA agent or whether he had had sex with that woman. He wasn't
even being asked about a crime — the judge was asking about who bought the
copies of "Of Pandas and People" that were donated to the school.

And
Bonsell really didn't want to say.

In fairness, Bonsell wasn't very
believable even before the judge started laying into him. He said, "I have
never brought anything forward to put creationism in the school district in
any shape or form" — despite notes from board retreats and other testimony
describing him bringing up creationism.

I was expecting him to say,
"I did not have sex with that panda."

And so the Dover Panda Trial took
an interesting turn. Certainly, the big issues — mostly notably, separation
of church and state — remain. But now, members of the Dover Area School
Board may have to worry about those aforementioned gaps and problems in
their testimony.

Of course, the defendants are going to turn this
around and blame those darned liberal activist judges. It doesn't work. For
one thing, Jones was appointed to the federal bench by George W. Bush,
not known for appointing liberals. And, you know, insisting that
witnesses tell the truth in court isn't exclusively a liberal
proposition.

On the one hand, school board members can use this to
defend against the charge that they were motivated by religious belief in
introducing intelligent design or creationism into the biology
curriculum. If they were motivated by religion, how come none of them
ever heard of the Ninth Commandment — you know, the one about bearing false
witness?

On the other hand, it's really a sad day for America when public
officials can no longer lie convincingly enough to get it past a federal
judge.

I blame the public schools. I mean, just look at some of the bozos
in charge of them.

>
> From:
> http://ydr.com/story/doverbiology/92406/
>
> Thank you, Robert Baty, for referring me to this one!
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------
>
> I was expecting him to say, "I did not have sex with that panda."
>

lol. Looks like this would make a good t-shirt slogan.

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